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Tessa Majors Murder: Teen Gets Up to Life in Prison for Barnard Student Killing

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A teenage boy arrested in the 2019 deadly stabbing of Barnard College student Tessa Majors in a Manhattan park, a crime that rattled New York City residents for its apparent randomness, was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years to life in prison.

Rashaun Weaver, now 16, pleaded guilty to murder and robbery in the high-profile case last month. He was first arrested and charged in the case in February 2020.

Prosecutors alleged he was the one who fatally stabbed Majors. He was 14 years old at the time of Majors’ death but was charged as an adult with second-degree murder and robbery because of the nature of the crime.

Majors was stabbed as she walked through Morningside Park early the evening of Dec. 11, 2019. She staggered up a flight of stairs to the street and collapsed in a crosswalk. Two other boys were also arrested in the case.

In court last month, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said Weaver admitted to a codefendant that he stabbed Majors because she “bit me.” Bogdanos said Weaver’s father is incarcerated and the boy’s mother called him in jail after Majors’ stabbing to say that Weaver had been bitten on the right hand.

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Police used that evidence to positively identify him as a suspect in Majors’ stabbing. Prosecutors say police leaked that information to reporters, which helped Weaver’s mother hide him in various places across the city amid the search for the college student’s killer. The boy was ultimately arrested on Valentine’s Day in 2020.

The final of three teens arrested in the death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors. Myles Miller reports.

Weaver had robbed another person right before, by his own statement in court. As part of that written, prepared statement he delivered last month, Weaver admitted to that robbery and another one — and intentionally causing the death of Majors.

The attack, two days before the start of 2019 final exams at the women’s school, troubled city residents because of its proximity to campus and how random it appeared to be. Barnard is part of the Ivy League’s Columbia University.

Prosecutors sought to lay out a case for Weaver being a consistently violent person in the plea hearing. According to the prosecution, Weaver had been caught with a weapon and drugs while staying at a detention facility. He allegedly shattered a window and attacked counselors on 11 separate occasions there, prosecutors said.

The boy’s attorney, high-powered defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, told the court his client is redeemable. Weaver’s family was inside the courtroom and yelled, “I love you!” as the teen was returned to a holding cell after the December hearing.

Majors’ father was also there. He didn’t speak.

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The young woman from Charlottesville, Virginia, played in a rock band and had told an editor from a newspaper internship in high school that she planned to take journalism classes in college. She was a freshman at Barnard when she died.

Weaver’s co-defendant, Luchiano Lewis, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in court this past fall. The other, a 14-year-old boy whom News 4 is not identifying because of the juvenile charge, pleaded guilty in 2020.

Source: NBC New York

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